The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
As networking fabrics have grown in complexity due to their shear scale and number of vendors in the market, the management of such fabrics has also grown in complexity. Complex management causes great inefficiencies within the fabric, which degrades performance (e.g., large latencies, slow reconfiguration, poor resource allocation, etc.). Such inefficiencies often arise when applications (e.g., storage networks, data transport networks, computation fabrics, etc.) request fabric resources at a high layer in the fabric, the data plane for example, that have significant impact on a lower layers of the fabric; the control plane of a transport layer for example. For example, a transport layer could include an optical networking transport layer. As an example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,107,476 to MacLean et al. titled “System and Method for Switching Packet Traffic Over an Optical Transport Network”, filed Apr. 2, 2010, describes switching traffic via mappers that map traffic to electrical streams.
Some effort has been directed to reducing inefficiencies through Software Defined Networking (SDN). U.S. Pat. No. 4,982,421 to Krisch et al. titled “Virtual Private Line Service”, filed Oct. 27, 1989, is a very early attempt at using SDN and describes assigning terminals private lines to a software defined network where the software define network provides private network services. Further, U.S. patent application 2013/0028091 to Sun et al. titled “System for Controlling Switch Devices, and Device and Method for Controlling System Configuration”, filed Feb. 22, 2012, seeks to reduce power consumption on a control plane via software defined networking. Of particular note, Sun is typical in that Sun indicates control planes and data planes should be separated.
Still further effort has been directed to creating hybrid fabrics that aid in handling resource requests. U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,867 to Bowman-Amuah titled “System, Method, and Article of Manufacture for Implementing a Hybrid Network”, filed Aug. 31, 1999, describes implementing a hybrid fabric. Network capacity requests are made based on future demands and the hybrid fabric is analyzed to identify network problems. The hybrid fabric is then provisioned in accordance with the problems and the requests. However, Bowman-Amuah focuses on provisioning based on future demand, and does not properly address provisioning across layers in a fabric.
Nevertheless, still further effort has been put forth toward managing across layers of a fabric. European patent application publication EP 1 089 521 to Hobbs et al. titled “Methods and apparatus for controlling communications networks”, filed Sep. 25, 2000, describes reconfiguring layer 3 services based on processing data collected from an optical transport layer and packet data layer based on a fuzzy logic control algorithm. U.S. Pat. No. 7,269,185 to Kirkby et al. “Management and Control of Multi-Layer Networks”, filed May 22, 2001, describes multiple resource allocation layers capable of managing resources along with conditions for use. The control and management planes communicate with reach other to provide a global view of paths and path costs. Additionally, U.S. patent application 2012/0093030 to Kim et al. titled “Cross Layer Path Provisioning Method and System in Multi Layer Transport Network”, filed Oct. 18, 2011, describes an interlock system between a management plane and control plane when provisioning a path. Interestingly, these references also contemplate retaining a distinction among planes within a fabric and fail to provide insight into actual control plane management.
Yet further work has been directed, at least as some level, toward management of a control plane. U.S. patent application publication 2010/0118740 to Takacs et al. titled “System and Method for Identifying Non-Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol Control Planes”, filed Oct. 19, 2009, discusses associating identifiers with a specific control plane instance and binding a VLAN identifier to the control plane. U.S. patent 2012/0120964 to Koponen et al. “Network Control Apparatus and Method for Populating Logical Datapath Sets”, filed Oct. 7, 2011, describes a logical control plane that includes constructs that allow a control application and its users to specify logical datapath sets within the logical control plane. International application publication WO 2012/154751 to Tomic et al. titled “Flexible Radix Switching Network” filed May 8, 2012, seeks to improve performance in high radix networks through various techniques including providing a unified control plane and a unified management plane. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 7,894,334 to Wen et al. titled “Hierarchical Redundancy for a Distributed Control Plane”, filed Aug. 15, 2008, discusses a distributed control plane that has a plurality of control plane processes instantiated on processors. Another example includes U.S. patent application publication 2001/0188865 to Lalonde et al. titled “Method for Rapid Determination of Lowest Cost Wavelength Routes Through a Photonic Network based on Pre-Validated Paths”, filed Feb. 4, 2010, which references instantiating a control plane in a network to facilitate establishing end-to-end connections. U.S. patent application 2012/0297088 to Wang et al. titled “Selective Content Routing and Storage Protocol for Information-Centric Network”, filed Nov. 2, 2011, describes distributing content among routers in a VPN according to how a control plane is instantiated.
Even though the above references describe instantiating a control plane, they fail to address key issues related to control plane management. More specifically, the reference seeks to retain a distinction between a control plane and other planes within the fabric. The references fail to appreciate that virtualization of the fabric has given rise to multiple layers or fabric planes, which cause poor performance, inoperability among vendors, increased cost to the consumer, or other major inefficiencies. What is needed is a convergence of among fabric layers or planes rather than a segregation of layers or planes to provide a solution to the problems of inefficiency, cost, or poor performance. Thus there is a great need for system, methods, apparatus, or other technologies that give rise to control plane harmonization so that provisioning of fabric resources can occur from any layer to any layer.
All publications herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.